Mostly.ĭespite the large amount of battlefields and enemies I have to say I found that combat became a chore for me far too quickly, and when the entire game is based around combat that’s a problem. I really like this and it keeps the battles interesting. If you don’t carefully observe the battlefield before you start moving you might find yourself roundly humiliated. Traps can be hidden, stacks of boxes can be pushed over and then set on fire, undergrowth can be torched which can spread, certain features can cause a character to slip, and sometimes even natural gas pockets can be ignited to cause a massive explosion. Commonly used attacks can be assigned to a number key at least.īattles are all about using what you’ve got strategically, and that includes the environment. The downside is that this menu is standard for all characters, and so doesn’t compensate if one isn’t a mage for example so they’ll always be unable to use half the stuff on the wheel. Items (you can only use what’s on that character’s belt, including poisons, potions and traps), Perception (to detect traps), all the various types of spells, special attacks, or just choosing to wait for someone else to have a go first are various examples. You have a wide selection of options every turn depending on each character’s skills, which you can pull up on a menu wheel with RMB. Characters move XCOM-like with a short range to move before an action or a longer “dash” range with no action. The way battles work is traditional turn-based style on a hex-based grid with each character having a Health and maybe a Mana bar which you have to manage, and numerous tweaks to keep it interesting. Oh no, ambushed next to the Bog of Eternal Stench! I personally found that the whole game got very tedious very fast. Again, if you’re happy with this then great, fair play to you. While you occasionally have choices to make there are no consequences so there’s very little actual role-playing, it’s all either going into battle or preparing for your next battle. You have got to ask yourself right now if this is what you want from an RPG. There’s no exploring, very little choice, no talking things out, if you click somewhere on the map 99% of the time you’ll get a combat encounter. The turn-based combat, as mentioned, is the entire thrust of the game. Couldn’t I ask her massive retinue of guards to help us save her? Instead of putting us in an impossible battle where I could only save her if I died? After about twenty restarts I just let her die, and it didn’t cost me anything. There’s also just some plain odd writing, like the nutty Bailiff hunting you proclaiming “keeping company with murderers makes you a murderer too!” Er, no it doesn’t, and I don’t think his ploy about kidnapping a baroness (who a moment ago was surrounded by heavily-armed bodyguards) and hanging her to draw us in to a trap would make him very popular in that area. The story isn’t bad, with one or two points of treachery and some neat characters (particularly the leads), but it’s nowhere near as intriguing as Memoria. After escaping from the prison alongside a mysterious lothario mage called Zurbaran (who may or may not be a spy) and an angry dwarf called Naurim, you and your little band of fugitives must not only escape the bounty hunters and strange men in black on your trail but also eventually become the unlikely hope of the land of Aventuria. The most sorry bunch of heroes in a fantasy RPG you’ll ever seeīlackguards puts your player-created character in the role of a prisoner, convicted for the brutal murder of the Princess Elenor who was supposed to be your friend. What I didn’t expect was for Blackguards to be all combat. After two enjoyable adventures set in Germany’s answer to D&D I was looking forward to seeing what Daedalic could do with the more naturally-fitting genre for a fantasy role-playing tabletop set. I was attracted to the game by the description of it as an RPG with turn-based combat based on The Dark Eye universe. There aren’t many games that I struggle to review because I personally didn’t get on with it and yet I know that it’s built for a very specific sub-set of player, but Blackguards was definitely one. Blackguards is a game that either has been built for you or it hasn’t.

Both were very good, but if you’re making games based on an RPG surely there should actually be an RPG among them? Finally Daedalic have done just that, and it’s called Blackguards. The Dark Eye is an extremely popular tabletop fantasy role-playing game in Germany, in the style of Dungeons & Dragons and their ilk, so it’s odd that the only games which have been made out of it are Daedalic’s adventures Chains of Satinav and Memoria.

Blackguards vs blackguards 2